Grace Szwedko Delivered the Late Goal Westminster Needed Against UCCS

Grace Szwedko scored at 2:48 of the fourth quarter to push Westminster Women's Lacrosse ahead 12-9 in the Griffins' March 13, 2026 home opener against UCCS. Westminster held on for a 12-11 final, and the Salt Lake City native — out of Highland High School — became the player whose name carried the program's first home-game story of the season.

The goal arrived with the score tight, the visitors pushing, and the home opener still in doubt. Within the next two minutes, UCCS would score twice. Without Szwedko's insurance goal, the Griffins' opening night would have ended differently.

The play

Westminster's official recap places Szwedko's goal at the 2:48 mark of the fourth quarter, with the Griffins clinging to an 11-9 lead. The goal extended the cushion to three. UCCS scored once at 1:33 and again at 0:47 in the closing minute, but the Griffins ran out the clock with possession.

The recap describes the late-game stretch as the Griffins' tightest moment of the night. Westminster had led for most of the second half. UCCS had cut the deficit to one goal twice in the third quarter before falling back to two. The fourth quarter was the visitors' best stretch of the match, which is what made Szwedko's score the swing.

The official box score from Westminster's lacrosse release lists Szwedko among the goal scorers. The release also names the assist source, the position the goal was scored from, and the time inside the quarter. That level of detail — time, score, assister — is the standard the Griffins' game notes use for every home match.

Szwedko's roster line

The Westminster roster lists Szwedko as a Salt Lake City native out of Highland High School, studying kinesiology on the Griffins' Sugar House campus. Highland High is roughly a five-minute drive from Westminster, which makes it one of the closest high schools to the university.

The kinesiology line on her roster page is a small detail but a useful one. Westminster's pre-med and pre-physical therapy pipelines run through kinesiology, and the program's athletics department highlights student-athletes who combine competition with that academic track. For a women's lacrosse player, the academic-athletic balance affects practice and travel schedules during the RMAC's away weekends.

Highland High doesn't carry a girls' varsity lacrosse program in the same prominent slot some east-coast prep schools do, which means Szwedko's route to a college lacrosse roster ran through Utah's club lacrosse network as well as the high school itself. The Griffins have been one of the steadier homes for Utah-developed lacrosse players in the modern era.

The home opener inside the schedule

The UCCS match was the Griffins' first home appearance of the 2026 spring season. Westminster competes in the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference, which means UCCS — Colorado Springs — was an in-conference opener.

RMAC women's lacrosse is one of the country's regional Division II hubs for the sport. The league's footprint runs from Colorado through Utah, New Mexico, and parts of South Dakota and Wyoming. Westminster has been one of the conference's host programs since joining for women's lacrosse in the recent past, and the Griffins' home matches at the Dumke Field complex draw a small but loyal alumni and family crowd.

The 12-11 win moves Westminster into the heart of its conference slate with a one-goal home result on record. Tight conference openers tend to carry weight in RMAC's late-season seeding, and Westminster's coaches have used opening-week results as positioning moments in past years.

For Szwedko specifically, the home opener served as her opportunity to put her name on the spring's first official box score. The position she scored from — the recap places it in the front-of-net area inside the eight-meter arc — is the position the program has used her in most heavily through her Westminster years.

What the win says about the Griffins' 2026 group

A one-goal home opener in conference play is the kind of result that sets a tone for the rest of a spring season. Westminster did not win comfortably. UCCS pushed the Griffins through the final two minutes and got the equalizing chances on the doorstep. The Griffins held the lead because one of their attackers finished a clean look in the right window of time.

That is the version of women's lacrosse that the RMAC most often produces — close, possession-heavy games in which late-quarter goals decide the seeding. Westminster's coaching staff has built recent rosters around attackers who can finish in the final minutes; Szwedko's goal places her inside that lineage.

The program's prior season included a similar set of one-goal conference results, and the Griffins' staff has talked publicly in postgame releases about emphasizing late-game possession management. The UCCS match, by that lens, was a textbook example: a late insurance goal followed by two minutes of defensive resistance and a final possession that ran out the clock.

What's next

Westminster's RMAC schedule continues through the spring. The Griffins have a mix of home and road conference matches ahead, and the league's tournament bracket is typically set in late April. The official athletics site posts each box score and game release within hours of the final whistle.

The next concrete update for Szwedko's season log is the next match recap. Her individual goal totals through the conference run will determine whether she finishes on the RMAC's all-conference team — an honor the Griffins' attackers have earned in recent seasons.

For now, the verified record is the March 13 box score: a one-goal home win, a 2:48 mark on the game clock, and a Highland High alum on the front of the scoring report. That gives Westminster women's lacrosse a clean opening line for the rest of its 2026 season.